Bitget Hack Wallet Swaps 2,390 ETH for 75.2 BTC as THORChain Denies Freeze
On-chain data from two outlets shows 27 THORChain swaps moved roughly $6.3M from Bitget hacker's ETH into BTC after a freeze request was denied.
A wallet linked to the Bitget hacker has converted roughly $6.3 million in ether into bitcoin through THORChain, according to two independent outlets, CoinGape and CoinDesk. The swaps went ahead after THORChain declined a public request from Bitget CEO Gracy Chen to block addresses tied to the exchange’s breach.
Two Outlets, One On-Chain Trail
CoinDesk’s own on-chain review identified 27 successful swaps that moved about 2,390 ETH into 75.2 BTC. CoinGape independently pegged the transferred value at approximately $6.3 million, close enough to CoinDesk’s roughly $6 million figure that the two counts describe the same underlying activity rather than two separate events.
That overlap matters. When two outlets pulling from different on-chain tools land on near-identical ETH and BTC totals, it is a reasonable signal the swap volume is real rather than an artifact of a stale price feed or a single cached snapshot being echoed across the industry.
Why THORChain Says It Can’t Freeze the Funds
Gracy Chen had asked THORChain to stop servicing addresses connected to the theft. THORChain is a decentralized cross-chain liquidity network with no central operator able to block a specific wallet from routing a swap, and both sources confirm the protocol did not act on the request. The swaps in question proceeded through the network’s ordinary liquidity pools rather than any special-cased mechanism.
This is not a new pattern. Cross-chain decentralized exchanges have repeatedly become the preferred route for laundering stolen funds precisely because they lack the centralized chokepoints that let exchanges or stablecoin issuers freeze assets on request. Circle and Tether have shown they can freeze specific token balances tied to hacks; a fully decentralized swap protocol offers no equivalent lever.
The Unverified Number: How Big Was the Original Theft?
CoinDesk’s report references a $387.5 million theft as the source of the funds now moving through THORChain. That figure appears only in one of the two sources reviewed here and has not been independently corroborated by CoinGape’s account, so it should be treated as single-sourced pending further confirmation.
It is also worth flagging against Bitget’s own confirmed hot-wallet breach figure of $351.6 million, reported separately and matched across three outlets at the time. Whether the $387.5 million reflects a broader theft total including additional wallets, or simply a different estimate of the same incident, is not clear from the current reporting. The gap is not necessarily a contradiction, but it is not yet reconciled either.
Read more: Bitget Confirms $351.6M Hot-Wallet Breach, Three Outlets Match the Figure
For now, the confirmed part of the story is narrow but concrete: 27 swaps, 2,390 ETH in, 75.2 BTC out, and a decentralized protocol that had no mechanism to stop it even after being asked directly.
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